A July 21 Metro article incorrectly said that there has not been a successful giant panda birth in the United States via natural mating. There was such a birth at the San Diego Zoo in 2003.
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Must Be Something in the Bamboo
Bai Yun cuddles with her cub, Mei Sheng, at the San Diego Zoo in May 2004. Zookeepers say Bai Yun is showing signs of being pregnant again.
(By Ken Bohn -- Associated Press)
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San Diego's Bai Yun and mate Gao Gao, both 13, mated in early April.
If Bai Yun is pregnant, hers would be the first cub born in the United States as a result of natural mating. The others were achieved through carefully timed artificial insemination, which must be done during the two-day annual window of opportunity during which the female panda is in heat.
"We have some very hopeful signs that come from what we are seeing up to this point, but we are not yet at the point of being able to make an announcement," Lindburg said. "That could come in the near future."
At Zoo Atlanta, Lun Lun and mate Yang Yang tried and failed to mate, so the female was artificially inseminated March 22. She has been nesting and showing other signs that indicate pregnancy since early this month.
Rebecca J. Snyder, curator of giant panda research and management at Zoo Atlanta, said she sends weekly panda urine samples to the National Zoo, where they are analyzed for hormone levels that could foretell a birth.
Snyder said Lun Lun cooperated with an ultrasound Tuesday, but the test was inconclusive. Lun Lun, born in 1997, "has had a pseudopregnancy each year since she was 3 1/2 ," Snyder said. "We get excited every year, but you never know for sure."
The four U.S. zoos with pandas have them on long-term loans from China in exchange for payments that fund conservation programs to save the animal in the wild. The pandas at the Memphis Zoo are too young to breed.
The cubs are the property of China and are to be sent there when they are 2 years old. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which regulates panda imports and care, does so on the condition that panda cubs be included in behavioral, nutrition or other research to improve the animal's status in the wild.
"It's too easy to focus on the good news of a new birth and characterize the new cub as a source of hope for the future of the species," said Karen Baragona, acting director of the World Wildlife Fund's species conservation program.
"The cub is an ambassador, but it's not going to bolster the wild population -- but the zoo, through its contribution, is going to be able to bolster the wild population and protect its habitat."
